knitting, sewing, and spinning, among other things.

June 5, 2005

Lately I haven't really felt like knitting. It could be because of the start of running season (10k next weekend!) or the dead hot weather that has recently descended on NYC. Most likely it has something to do with my ongoing indecision about what to knit.

The thing is this: I seriously have more yarn than one person should have. I don't really want to buy more. But every project I want to knit seems to require new yarn. and I refuse to purchase more. Also, I've been lazy/nervous about converting patterns to new gauges. Thus, no new projects are getting started!

Instead of knitting, I've been Kool-aid dyeing! and I am way hooked.

With some Knitpicks Color Your Own sock yarn (unbeleivably soft yarn if you haven't tried it) and Kool-Aid packets straight from suburbia, it was on.

This is my favorite one. Its self-striping. Mostly green, with little orange stripes.

Working with Kool-aid is a challenge because pretty much every color is neon. The skein above was dyed twice. The first time, I used straight-up lemon-lime and orange flavors. This resulted in 80s-quality neon yarn. Not really what I was going for... So I decided to try overdyeing it, re-dyeing the green section with purple (Grape), and the orange section with red (Grape Illusion). I am so thrilled with the true green color!

Great colors! I love that green... and you know it! I put in an order with KnitPicks last Wednesday and picked up a skein of this to try for fun. I am not into neon colors either, so I might take your suggestions and dye it over twice. I think I am going to go for a green and blue skein!

Very nicely done. I'm taking a dyeing class next week at the wool show I'm attending. I'll have to get some sock yarn from Knit Picks to try out my new skills. It's been hot there? Check out my blog for pictures of our 12" of snow!

Great! I am never brave enought to try and dye something twice. I was going to ask you last week how to you determine where to space the colors to make self stripping sock yarn. I need to know your therory on that!

Lovely results with the Kool-Aid dyeing. Yeah, the whole neon color thing is a little off-putting at first, but it is fun to really play with the colors and find the good combos. I love mixing up the packets and seeing the new results. Also, each yarn takes the dye differently, so you never know what you will get.

I hear you on the yarn--I have so much in my house too. I need to stop getting more and make things with what I have... that is the hard part though :P

Oooo.... I love the colors! I'm impressed with the beautiful colors you've gotten out of too-bright koolaid. I've got some knitpicks yarn on the way, and I'll have to try some of that complimentary overdying.

I love how your yarn turned out! I mentioned to a knitting friend that I had seen your blog and was thinking about trying some Kool-ade dyeing myself. She actually implied that I may be sliding down the slippery slope into madness. Heck, I've been sliding for a while now, what's one more thing. 'Course the mutterings about me buying sheep were prolly unnecessary, but I will pretend I didn't hear her.